Government announcement improves affordability and quality of child care

EDMONTON— Today the Government of Alberta announced the locations of 22 pilot Early Learning and Child Care Centres across the province, creating nearly 1,300 new spaces with a focus on affordability and quality.

“This announcement meets several needs for Albertans, including the need for more affordable child care spaces that have high quality standards,” said Joel French, Executive Director of Public Interest Alberta. “It is particularly important that the spaces are spread between urban and rural parts of the province. The more sparsely populated areas of Alberta are often forgotten in the child care conversation, so that is a crucial part of the action the government is taking.”

French encouraged the government to make further improvements to the quality of child care through higher staff training standards.

“The next step in all child care operations in Alberta needs to be raising the bar for training of staff, which is the most important determinant of quality care,” continued French. “That means ensuring staff at lower training levels are given clear paths to higher training, accompanied by wages that recognize them as professionals helping our children to develop in the most important formative stage of their lives.”